


i exist only to kill

by Ciaossu



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Characters Are Mentioned, Spoilers, just a lot of rambling on how "I exist only to kill" applies to both Kuja and the mages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciaossu/pseuds/Ciaossu
Summary: Kuja was perfection.He didn’t need Garland to tell him that. He wouldn’t stop him from saying it - it was so satisfying to hear others recognize how flawless he was - but he didn’t need Garland to tell him to know it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	i exist only to kill

Kuja was perfection.

He didn’t need Garland to tell him that. He wouldn’t stop him from saying it - it was so satisfying to hear others recognize how flawless he was - but he didn’t need Garland to tell him to know it.

The other Genome were bumbling fools compared to him. Empty minded bodies that shambled about while he flourished, grew, developed. It baffled him that Garland even continued to produce them when Kuja existed. Still, he let the old man continue to make them. He needed his hobbies while Kuja completed his work.

“Kuja.”

Kuja did not flinch. He simply flicked his hands to the side, shaking the blood from his hands. Genomes bleed, hmm? Did Kuja bleed? He had yet to struggle in a fight, so he had never seen himself bleed yet. Genomes bleed so easily though. This one hadn’t even fought when Kuja had walked up to it and wrenched his hands through

“You are not to kill them.”

Kuja sighed impatiently. He rested his hands on his hips. The other Genomes in the room were unmoving. They stared, blankly, at the crumpled duplicate on the floor. They never reacted. Never did anything to indicate they had a thought in their head.

How close had Kuja been to being just as brainless as them?

“Kuja.”

He jerked his head at the nearest Genome. “Clean this mess up, will you? I cannot be the only capable pair of hands in all of Terra.”

When the Genomes begin to shuffle about, Kuja turns to look at Garland. The old man seemed angry with him, but Kuja simply brushed his hair from his face as he walked past. The old man was always irritated about something. Kuja was not going to let that ruin the thrill in his veins from seeing a life ebb away.

“They are to be used when the time for Fusion comes, Kuja. They are not your playthings to murder.”

Kuja paused. _Murder._ He wanted to laugh. Genomes were soulless husks. They had no souls. You could not murder something that lacked a soul. They were puppets, nothing more. “Then I believe that you should begin to create more.”

Silence was all the response that Kuja earned, allowing his footsteps to echo in its emptiness. What did Garland expect from him, he mused, laughing as he examined the red staining his fingers.

Kuja existed only to kill.

\---

“What...is _that_?”

A Genome. The smallest Genome that Kuja had ever seen. Not yet fully developed, clearly. Garland had never removed one from development this early before. It was small, weak, barely capable of defending itself. Kuja could not imagine what the point of something so weak could possibly be.

Garland only sent him an impatient glance in response to his question before turning back to the small Genome. “I believe it was your very suggestion, was it not? That I _create more Genomes_?”

Kuja scoffed. He recalled saying that before he had departed to Gaia on Garland’s own orders. That Summoner village lay in ruins as Garland had demanded, but the fight the Summoners had put up still lingered in Kuja’s mind. Eidolons...Their power had seemed to shake the very bones in his body...if only he had such a power of his own...one that Garland himself feared…

“Surely you are not so desperate for vessels that you are rushing them? A feeble bird whose wings have barely sprouted...the soul that finds home in that puppet will surely miss the sky.”

The Genome looked around as Garland turned to Kuja’s. The old man’s gaze was always so heavy. One born with a soul...was the difference truly so great? It annoyed Kuja. “Bold words, coming from a failure.”

Kuja stilled. What? “...have I not completed your task to your satisfaction, Garland?” Kuja asked. His heart thrummed uncomfortably against his chest. Kuja wondered what the sensation meant. “Have I not killed enough in the name of your goal?”

“You kill indiscriminately. You have no fear, no guilt for the war you create. I need an Angel that is _capable_ , not a mindless puppet who can never achieve Trance.”

Garland never walked. Kuja did not see him move before he felt the hand rest upon his shoulder. “You will no longer be my Angel of Death. Your brother, Zidane, will be my tool of war. A Genome with the chance to grow and let his soul flourish...the secret of Trance will no longer evade me.”

Garland was gone before Kuja could object. Speak. Retort. His heart pounded faster, his hands were shaking. _Anger?_ Kuja felt a laugh he found no humour in bubble out of his throat and spill into the room.

_Zidane? A child? Replace him?_

Kuja existed only to kill.

When his laughter passed, his eyes settled on the curious child in front of him. The grin on his face pulled uncomfortably at the corners of his mouth.

Well...he’d deal with this problem the way he knew best.

\---

He doesn’t kill the child. Not because he cared about Zidane. The child looked at him with trusting eyes and put up no fuss from the moment Kuja had smuggled him away from Terra. Kuja does not feel _affection_ or _pity_ or any other weak minded nonsense.

Killing him just felt like an admittance. Conceding that this small, defenseless, emotional child was a threat to Kuja, as if this Zidane would be anything more than another puppet in Garland’s game.

_If Zidane was just a puppet, what did that make him, Garland’s supposed puppet?_

He deposited the child outside some bustling town that boasted about their airships. A weak child like this, left to the creatures of the Mist was no different than death.

 _Trance._ Kuja mused, returning to the Invincible. If Garland wanted the power of Trance, Kuja would simply find something stronger.

\---

_“What have you done?”_

Kuja sneered as he fell from the path of Garland’s spell. The old man may be strong, but Kuja was faster, stronger. He was created to start wars after all. He laughed as power gathered in his hands.

“What have I done? Is your vision so blinded by dreams of the impossible that you cannot see the obvious?” Thundaga crackled around him. “I disposed of your puppet, your weak little toy. Your new _Angel_ is as much of a failure as you are! You are a fool, old man, to think the hopes and dreams of Terra were so insignificant you could place them on the shoulders of a child!”

The electricity cracked through the air, only to bounce weakly off the Reflect spell that protected Garland. Kuja snarled. Damnable spell.

Garland never walked. That made the hand that closed around Kuja’s throat all the more surprising.

“You are a fool!” Garland pulled him close so that Kuja was unable to escape the burning eyes that stared into him. Anger. Kuja knew enough to recognize it now. “An arrogant child who knows not his place? You think you know the hopes of Terra better than I do.”

If Garland expected an answer, Kuja was unable to give it. Air failed to find a path to his lungs as Kuja scrambled and clawed for his release. Was this what the beginning of dying felt like? What a frustratingly slow experience.

Garland stepped forward and Kuja stumbled back. Behind Garland, Kuja could see Genomes gathered. Staring blankly. Always staring blankly. Kuja felt his heart beating furiously once more.

“You will never return.” Garland snarled. “You are a waste and a failure, just like I suspected. Perish on Gaia, so that your soul may finally find use.”

With that, Kuja felt himself fall. Garland was the last thing Kuja saw, staring down at him, as he went tumbling back through the liminal world between Gaia and Terra.

Kuja fell, screaming.

\---

He emerged from the ocean coughing and spluttering and fighting his way to the Lost Continent. He’d never felt the rage that coursed through his veins before. He yelled and cursed and spat at the sky, knowing Garland could see him if he bothered to look.

It took him months to recover his strength. When he did, he did the first thing he could think of to spite Garland further.

With Desert Palace his new home, Kuja began to plan what he did best.

\---

A summoner lived. She’d gone from simple villager to Princess. It seemed the Eidolons were closer at hand than he had anticipated.

\---

Puppets. If Kuja was to kill his own godly creator, why not have puppets of his own?

Mist was easily molded. With enough effort, puppets could be created, far faster than a Genome could be birthed.

Shambling creatures that did what he asked without a thought. Was this how Garland felt, watching the Genomes follow his orders without questions?

While Kuja did not stop to think of it, it is far more amusing to watch his puppets burn a village without getting his own hands dirty.

\---

The Elephant Lady was an annoying nuisance. But she was necessary, and like any being with a soul, easily molded.

It took only a few simple words, a tiny bit of prodding to move the Queen’s greed in the direction he needed. Soon enough there were more Black Mages than he had work for, and more souls flowing to Terra than he cared to think of. 

The summoner never trusted him. That was fine. He didn’t need her cooperation to get what he wanted. The Elephant Lady would serve him well enough.

Summons...a power beholden to a select few. Garland feared them, and that was enough reason for Kuja to know he needed them.

\---

 _Zidane lived._ His brother lived, paired with one of the very puppets Kuja had helped to create.

Should he laugh? Curse? Garland’s favourite seemed far more resilient than Kuja had anticipated.

He let him live. No sense in killing him. He will let Zidane grow until his brother reached his full potential.

How satisfying it will be to prove Garland wrong when he crushed his Angel brother between his two hands.

\---

Garland destroyed Alexander. Kuja’s eidolon, crushed without a fight under Garland’s command.

Fine. _Fine._ Kuja would do better, find better. He ignored his own blood dripping from the nails that dug into his palms.

He didn’t need Alexander. He didn’t need that useless summoner.

Kuja existed to kill.

_He would find another way._

\---

The Black Mages from the village were bumbling, brainless fools. Worse than the Genomes that stared at him with empty eyes.

He snarled, thunder from his fingers sending the puppets backing away from him.

“I don’t care!” He snapped at golden lights that starred endlessly back at him. Why did all puppets do nothing but _stare_? “You’ll die! There’s no stopping death, you brainless fools! There’s no extension to your life, no cure that I can provide you that would delay your fate. You don’t even have souls to return to Gaia or give to Terra. You are nothing!”

They were foolish enough to follow him. Desperate enough on the thrill of living to think that there was anything they could do to develop a soul. Souls were not wasted on puppets. Kuja would not waste that effort on them, even if he could.

“You exist only to kill. Now go out there and do as you are told.”

\---

(When Zidane stays with Kuja during his final hours, he tells him of a broken puppet who chanted the same. Garland was crueler than he was, to grant his puppets a soul.)

\---

_Trance. Trance._

The second he saw that dreadful creature enter a Trance, Garland’s ramblings made far more sense than they ever had in the past.

The key to Trance. The one thing Kuja himself was never capable of.

_Emotion. A strong surge of emotion._

Kuja wanted to curse the old man for barring this power from him at birth.

Fine. _Fine._

If Eidolons weren’t the tool to Kuja’s goal, Kuja would show Garland the power he wanted so badly.

\---

Die.

Die?

Kuja was going to die?

No. No. Kuja couldn’t die. He was perfection. He was the Angel of Death. Kuja was the one who would rule Gaia and Terra with his awesome power, the gift Trance had given him, he wasn’t going to

The old man was dead. He was finally dead.

He ruined his very death for Kuja.

Die. Garland was so sure Zidane would succeed Kuja, he gave Kuja the gift of death.

Kuja, the very god of Gaia and Terra who conquered Garland and conquered Gaia and

Fine. _Fine._

Kuja existed to kill.

If he was going to cease existing.

_Then he was going to kill existence._

\---

Zidane killed death.

Kuja wanted to laugh.

Zidane suited the title of Angel of Death far better than he did, in the end.

\---

Kuja was a failure. He didn’t need Garland to tell him that. It didn’t matter in the end. He would never hear Garland or anyone else say it again.

Zidane was prattling, confirming that his friends were safe from the thrashing roots. His brother was so different from him.

(Zidane mentioned a third Genome, called her their sister. She had been more puppet than Zidane, but less a tool than Kuja. She was far less emotional than either of them.)

If Trance was a surge of emotions, death was the absence of them. Everything that moved through Kuja felt slow and distant as he grew cold.

Dying. He was dying. Far earlier than Garland had deemed he would.

What would happen to his soul? With no Terra, would he flow into Gaia? Or would the planet reject his very being for the number of lives he had reaped from her body?

He didn’t know. It scared him.

“Zidane…”

His brother fell silent immediately. For all he talked, he knew when to listen. _Empathy._ Kuja had never bothered with that side of emotions.

“...I’m dying.”

Zidane is quiet. Kuja didn’t see him move, but felt the hand on his own. “You are.”

Kuja laughed. “I thought you killed death, brother.”

Zidane didn’t laugh with him.

Why did Kuja want him to?

“...If I get you out...Dagger might still be close. We can try, we can heal you, you can…”

What?

Live in Gaia?

Kuja laughed again. He couldn’t. Zidane was building a world with no war. And Kuja?

“I exist only to kill, brother.”

He would kill his own existence for his Angel brother’s world.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha I finished FF7 and instead of thinking about it my love for FF9 took over and word vomited a Kuja fic at 1 am so this is not beta read or preplanned and thank you for reading this rambling nonsense if you did.
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about Kuja and what an excellent antagonist and foil he is to Zidane and how his disdain and hatred for black mages can easily stem from the fact that they're both puppets created by someone else with the purpose of killing and what's up, I love this funky chaotic bi genome.
> 
> Thank you for reading and you can reach me on twitter at @sid3walk if you wanna yell about ff9 with me.


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